Last Minute Shopping
by apriiil
Summary: It's nine o'clock on Christmas Eve, and Yukino has yet to buy a gift for her two closest friends. The only problem though, is that the only store open is practically empty, and she's not the only one with her sights set on getting the last remaining box on the shelves. [MidKino Week - Day Four: Late Night Shopping]


**A/N:** _First of all, I just want to say that I'm proud of myself for writing a story where Bickslow isn't even mentioned once! Well, apart from just then. I'll be the first to admit I have a bit of a problem..._

 _But anyway. Since MidKino week is upon us, and since **The Empress of Everything** and **Fareetauhl** have made me love them so much already, I decided to try my hand at writing them. I do, in fact, have a bit of MidKino in the next two chapters of Shattered, but unfortunately, those are nowhere near being finished, and so I wouldn't have had even the first of the two up by the end of this glorious week. _

_So without further ado, I give you my take on Day 4's Late Night Shopping. If anyone is interested in taking part in this week too, the rest of the prompts will be at the end!_

* * *

"Ah, perfect!" Yukino sighed in relief when she saw the lone box sitting on the practically empty shelves in the quiet store. With her eyes focused on it like it was a newly released and signed copy of her favourite chef's new recipe book, she determinedly headed towards the display at the end of the aisle.

She needed that box in her hands, and she needed that box in her hands in the next thirty seconds, preferably.

Yukino was once again wishing she hadn't left her Christmas shopping right until the last minute. Every other year she managed to have it all done and dusted by noon on Christmas Eve at the very least. But this year…

This year, Yukino had really left it until the last second, and at 8:54 p.m on Christmas Eve, she was really cutting it close. She'd heard the warning that the store was closing shortly (god, why weren't the stores open later? It's only Christmas, damn it!), and that all remaining shoppers needed to head to the checkouts, but Yukino had done her best to ignore it and just focus on finding the perfect gift for her dear friend Lucy, and her not so dear boyfriend, Erik. It wasn't that she didn't love Erik, because she did. He was just difficult to buy for. Everyone else's presents she had wrapped up and sitting under her tree at home if they hadn't already been given to the people she'd bought (or made, in some cases) them for.

But Lucy and Erik… Those two, she'd had no clue what to get that year. Not until she'd seen the Scrabble fridge magnet set sitting on the shelf so close to being within her reach. It was perfect for them, now that they were living together. She'd stopped by their new place just a few weeks earlier, and seeing what had been on their fridge had honestly terrified her. Countless colourful insults scribbled in amongst the actual grocery list on a magnetised notepad that she knew to be in Lucy's handwriting, some even more disturbing ones that she knew only Erik could have come up with, a few cute magnets with sweet reminders that they did (sometimes) love each other or to remind the other that they needed to pay the rent and feed the cat, and then a crossword puzzle from the weekend paper that always sat in the top corner that the two of them would always slowly manage to complete during the week.

Maybe with a Scrabble magnet set, they could put their gifted minds to something other than coming up with the most horrible and creative insults that somehow only managed to prove that were completely and totally perfect for each other. Though, if Yukino had to be perfectly honest, she doubted it would help them de-clutter their fridge. It was still a nice gift though, right?

She hoped so at least. But at nearly nine o'clock on Christmas Eve, she just didn't care. She just wanted to get home and tuck herself into bed with some hot chocolate, homemade sugar cookies, and a good book that Lucy had probably loaned her at some point and she'd just _forgotten_ to return it. Yukino couldn't do any of that until she'd gotten out of the damn store though. Gosh, she hated late night shopping with a passion. The fact it was last minute shopping was making her hate it even more.

But… It was her own fault she'd been forced to go to the department store that was a thirty-minute drive from her house. She could only be glad they'd been open at all, since it was Christmas Eve after all. Every other store in the mall had been closed. She'd even seen the cleaners polishing the floors with their headphones on and avoiding the stray shoppers that were just as unorganised as she was.

The white haired woman was only pulled from her self-reminding thoughts that she alone was to blame for her lack of organisation (well… Apart from Sting and Rogue for making her last few weeks a living hell and making her exhausted beyond all belief, having had to clean up their messes and screw-ups by herself with Minerva taking a sudden vacation until the new year) that year, and that she couldn't put the blame on anyone else but the manager that the department store was so goddamn freezing (it was colder inside than it was outside), when her hand only connected with someone else's on the Scrabble fridge magnet set box on the shelf.

 _No, no, no. This isn't happening._ No one could want the exact same thing that she did. She didn't have the time for this. She needed something for Lucy. Not so much Erik, since he just happened to be an extension of Lucy when it came to buying gifts for (literally his words). But she needed something for Lucy.

She turned to look to the body attached to the hand that was still on the box next to hers, neither wanting to let go it apparently, and she only blinked at the man who let out a long yawn. Black and white hair with a single braid on one side, black lined eyes, and… _Is he… Is he wearing pink lipstick?_ _Has anyone told this guy he's in the wrong decade either?_

Yukino cleared her throat and looked back to the Scrabble box quickly, and then to the seemingly half asleep man in front of her. "I'd—"

"I grabbed it first."

She blinked. She'd barely gotten the first damn word out before he'd cut her off. And he grabbed it first? No, he certainly did not! "Um, no… I did, actually," Yukino said as politely as she could. At the very least, she'd seen it first. That had to count for something, right?

The man only lifted his free hand to rub at his tired eyes. "Look, lady—"

"Yukino."

" _Yukino_ ," the man sighed, ignoring how familiar the name sounded as he opened his dark eyes to look to the woman with the short hair before him. "If it were any other item, I'd probably let you take it. But I need this."

She frowned. This just wasn't going to happen. She needed that magnet set, damn it! "Okay, I understand that you want this…" She paused and blinked again, realising she didn't know his name. Not that it mattered anyway, but she wanted to know, so quietly, she asked, "What is your name, if you don't mind me asking. Since you know mine now."

"…Macbeth," he mumbled. He still preferred his usual name of Midnight, but he'd been trying to actually avoid using it all the time.

"Right, Macbeth," she said with a nod and a warm smile. "Look, Macbeth, I _need_ this Scrabble fridge magnet set. It's perfect for my best friend and her boyfriend, and did I mention that I really, really _need_ it?" Yukino turned to look up to the price tag below the box it came in, and then back to tired man before her. "I'll give you double what it's actually worth if you let me have this!"

He had to admit it was tempting, but if he got Cobra another bottle of vodka and sleeping pills for Christmas, he was sure to never wake up himself. Even if the pills had always been meant as a joke (and he knew very well that Cobra knew it), there were only so many years in a row you could gift the exact same thing. It didn't help that he needed to get something for Lucy too, now that they'd moved in together and were inviting everyone around for dinner on Christmas Day. Macbeth had only tried to get out of going to that a million times, but no. The blonde girlfriend was persistent, and after he'd seen the chaos going on on their fridge, Macbeth had known a Scrabble magnet set would be eerily perfect for them.

No doubt they'd use it to spell out their insults still (he was quite certain he would go over there after Christmas only to find the words 'go fuck yourself' spelled out somewhere, along with 'I love you too'), but whatever. Everyone likes Scrabble. Surely the two wouldn't be as bad as they got when they played Monopoly. Once was enough for Macbeth to know that he was never, ever going to play that game with them again.

He needed the damn Scrabble set, but so did Yukino, and she seemed like a really sweet girl. He needed to just get out of the store though, because he needed to go home and go back to sleep. It didn't help that he could see a store clerk no doubt coming to tell them the store was closing right then and that they really did have to head to the registers or leave without buying anything.

Shaking his head with yet another tired sigh, Macbeth only said, "It's tempting, but no. If I turn up to Lucy's place tomorrow without anything for her, I'm probably never going to wake up. You've got a few minutes left under your sleeve. I'm sure you could—"

"Lucy?" Scrabble… Lucy… He couldn't mean the same Lucy, could he? Yukino's brow creased in confusion at the now silent man before her. "You don't mean Lucy Heartfilia, do you?"

He shrugged. "Sounds about right." In truth, he'd probably been half asleep the time Erik had actually introduced him to Lucy the first time. Even if the guy was his best friend, he'd never really thought his relationship with the woman would last long enough for him to warrant knowing her last name. "Why does it matter?"

"Because this is what I was planning on giving her and Erik tomorrow."

That seemed to wake Macbeth up, and his hand on the box only moved ever so slightly as he stared to the white haired woman before him. She knew his best friend and his girlfriend. What were the chances? _That must be why her name sounded familiar._ He'd only heard small tales from Cobra about Lucy and her best friend (more complaints about their antics and fangirling, really), but he'd never paid attention much. "Huh. So my best friend is dating one of yours, and we're only just meeting now… Oh… No…"

When he trailed off, his pale cheeks becoming dusted with just the barest of tinges of colour, Yukino only became more confused. So this was Erik's illustrious best friend whom she'd heard almost nothing about, apart from what Lucy had told her every time she'd… _Oh… No._

Yukino understood why Macbeth had trailed off so suddenly, because she was sure she had the same thought running through her head. All year, Lucy and Erik had been trying to get their two best friends to go on a 'blind' date with each other. Yukino had cancelled each and every time, because to be perfectly honest, she wasn't interested in dating. Macbeth had been glad every time he'd found he'd been given a reprieve though. It saved him getting out of bed. Plus… Dating was gross. It involved getting out of bed and going out.

But this was the best friend of his best friend's girlfriend. What a way to finally meet though. "So you're the one who keeps cancelling," he mumbled.

"I-I… I'm sorry… I mean, I…" She looked down with her red face before back up to the Scrabble box. Sighing, she stomached her anxiety and then looked back to the man before her, only noticing the slight smirk on his lips. "Look, we have about a minute until the store closes, so neither of us have time to go find anything else. And I'm assuming you'll be going to their little party tomorrow night if you're Erik's friend…"

"Unfortunately."

She nodded. "Right, well… We could always just…" Yukino dropped her hand from the Scrabble box, and waited until Macbeth hesitantly did the same with his. "Give them a gift… Together?"

He arched a brow. "Together? As in… From _us_?"

"I know it's not conventional or anything since we just met and we know nothing about each other, but we both wanted to get them it, and it's Christmas Eve and we're seriously running out of time…"

"And it would probably keep Lucy happy to know that we've actually met now…"

Yukino nodded again. "Exactly. So… You in? We each pay half?"

It was a good plan, if Macbeth were to be perfectly honest. Which, he always was. The store clerk was getting closer and closer with a fowl look on his face, probably just annoyed he was having to walk around the overly large store and round up the stray shoppers and tell them to buy something or get out, it was getting later and later, and their time was quickly dwindling.

Lucy and Erik seeing that it was from both of their best friends would definitely keep Lucy happy at the very least. It probably wouldn't do much in the way of getting them to get off their backs about getting them to go on a date, especially now that they'd met, even if they were under some pretty odd and unexpected circumstances.

It was a perfect plan, and it really had nothing to do with the fact that Macbeth was just as desperate to go home and get into bed as Yukino was. Not that he knew that, of course. Nodding, he pulled the box from the shelf and tucked it under an arm. "I'm in."

They could only walk past the store clerk as the teenager sighed in relief, and as they did so, Yukino herself could only sigh in relief once again too. She was one step closer to going home and curling up in bed, and that was all she wanted. She only made a vow, right then and there, to never leave her Christmas shopping until nine o'clock the night before, just because she absolutely loathed late night shopping.

Though she could see the upside to it. There was always plenty of parking close to the entrances…

* * *

 _So I hope you enjoyed this... Whatever it was! Like I said, I had planned on having the Shattered chapters up in time, but that's just not happening. Plus, I saw the prompt, and I was like, yeah, I need to do this. Even if it was 11 p.m at the time._

 _So, if anyone else was interested, here are the rest of the prompts for The Empress of Everything (Angst... Hehe) and Fareetauhl's awesome little creation, MidKino week (January 31st - 6th February 2016)._

 **Day One:** Can I Keep You?

 **Day Two:** Sugar High

 **Day Three:** Roommates

 **Day Four:** Late Night Shopping

 **Day Five:** Makeup Fail

 **Day Six:** Old Friends

 **Day Seven:** Transport

 **Bonus:** Burnt

 _As always, I hope you enjoyed this. Remember to review if you did!_

 _Until next time._

 _\- April_


End file.
